Master Plan for Friends House Retirement Community in Sandy Spring, Maryland

The Friends House Retirement Community in Sandy Spring, Maryland is a 62-acre site that is a 30-minute drive from the University of Maryland campus. Of the 240 senior residents who live in Friends House, approximately half are practicing Quakers – or Quaker Friends. The elder citizens who collectively comprise the Friends House culture are just as peaceful and tranquil as the landscape features that surround them. They appreciate the simplicity of life. They believe that everyone is equal, and they respect nature.

In the summer of 2000, members of the Friends House Quaker community initiated contact with the landscape architecture program at the University of Maryland. They hoped that our landscape architecture program could help them develop a plan that incorporated landscaping and the design of a memorial garden. After a series of site visits and surveys, it was obvious that suburban features like high-speed traffic and noise pollution were beginning to jeopardize the rural character of the Friends House surroundings. The class felt that it was important for the senior community to retain its woodland character despite the suburbia that was beginning to encroach upon it. More important, the class appreciated the Quaker Friend’s participatory decision-making culture. Therefore, the class decided to employ participatory design methods to generate a master plan for the future of Friends House. Friends House Website

The six pages of students’ sample project is prepared by: Amelia Campana, Katia Goffin, Viola Posthuma, and Kelly Seetoo. For more information about this project, contact Shenglin Chang.